FILE - In this undated handout photo of a polar bear taken in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. More than two-thirds of the world's polar bears will be killed off by 2050 - the species completely gone from Alaska - because of thinning sea ice from global warming in the Arctic, government scientists forecast Friday. (AP Photo/Subhankar Banerjee, File)

In this Aug. 3, 2011 file photo, the remains of a carp is seen on the lake dried out lake bed of O.C. Fisher Lake in San Angelo, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

The effects of human-induced climate change are being felt in every corner of the United States, scientists reported Tuesday.

The government’s new national assessment of global warming found:

— Water is growing scarcer in the nation’s dry regions.

— Torrential rains are increasing in its wet regions.

— Heat waves are becoming more common and more severe.

— Wildfires are growing worse, and forests are dying under assault from heat-loving insects.

Such sweeping changes have been caused by an average warming of less than 2 degrees Fahrenheit over most land areas of the country in the past century, the scientists found.

If carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases continue to escalate at a rapid pace, they said, the warming could exceed 10 degrees by the end of this century.

“Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present,” the scientists declared in a new report assessing the situation in the U.S.

“Summers are longer and hotter, and extended periods of unusual heat last longer than any living American has ever experienced,” the report continued. “Winters are generally shorter and warmer. Rain comes in heavier downpours.

“People are seeing changes in the length and severity of seasonal allergies, the plant varieties that thrive in their gardens and the kinds of birds they see in any particular month in their neighborhoods.”

The report is the latest in a series of dire warnings about how the effects of global warming that had been long foreseen by climate scientists are already affecting the planet.

Its region-by-region documentation of changes in the United States, and of future risks, makes clear that few places will be unscathed — and some, such as northerly areas, are feeling the effects at a swifter pace than had been expected.

Alaska in particular is hard hit. Glaciers and frozen ground are melting; storms are eating away at fragile coastlines no longer protected by winter sea ice; and entire communities are having to flee inland — a precursor of the large-scale changes the report foresees for the rest of the country.

The study, known as the National Climate Assessment, was prepared by a scientific panel overseen by the government and received final approval Tuesday.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said President Barack Obama was likely to “use the platform to renew his call for a national energy tax.”

Leaders in the fossil fuel industry, which is responsible for a large amount of the heat-trapping carbon dioxide, said their energy is needed and the U.S. can’t afford to cut back.

“Whether you agree or disagree with the report, the question is: What are you going to do about it? To us, that is a major question,” said Charlie Drevna, president of the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers. He called the report “overblown.”

The White House, which released the report, wants to maximize its impact to drum up a sense of urgency about climate change — and thus to build political support for a climate change regulation that Obama plans to issue in June.

But instead of giving a Rose Garden speech, Obama spent Tuesday giving interviews to local and national weather broadcasters on climate change and extreme weather. The goal was to help Americans connect the planetary problem of global warming caused by carbon emissions from cars and coal plants to the changing conditions in their back yards.

In the Northeast, the report found a big increase in torrential rains and risks from a rising sea that could lead to a repeat of the kind of flooding seen in superstorm Sandy.

In the Southwest, current water shortages are likely just a foretaste of the changes to come, the report found.

The report did find some benefits from climate change in the short run, particularly for the Midwest, such as a longer growing season for crops and a longer shipping season on the Great Lakes.

But it warned that these were likely to be countered in the long run by escalating damages, particularly to agriculture.

The report was supervised and approved by a committee representing a cross section of U.S. society, including representatives of two oil companies.

It is the third national report in 14 years, and by far the most urgent in tone, leaving little doubt that the scientists consider climate change an incipient crisis.

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